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OF  THE 
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A  MOUNTAIN  TOWN  IN  FRANCE 
A  FRAGMENT  BY  ROBERT  LOUIS 
STEVENSON  WITH  FIVE  ILLUS- 
TRATIONS BY  THE  AUTHOR  <g 


JOHN  LANE  THE  BODLEY  HEAD  1896 
NEW   YORK   AND  LONDON   jft  j*  *  & 


Jmj 


A  MOUNTAIN  TOWN   IN  FRANCE 


This  Edition  consists 
of  350  copies  of  which 
this  is  No.         (pcf 


Illustration  I. 

Panorama  from  Morel's  at  Le  Monastier. 


--s  ^ 


A  Mountain  Town  in  France 

A    FRAGMENT    BY 

ROBERT  LOUIS  STEVENSON 

With  Five    Illustrations 
by  the  Author 


* 


JOHN  LANE  :  THE  BODLEY  HEAD 

New  York  and  London 
1896 


Copyright,  1896, 
JOHN  LANE 


Press  of  J.  J.  Little  &  Co. 
Astor  Place,  New  York 


'GIFT 


.> 


We  are  indebted  to  the  representatives  of  the 
late  Robert  Louis  Stevenson  for  permission  to 
print  the  following  account  of  his  stay  at  Le  Mo- 
nastier  in  the  autumn  of  1878.  It  was  intended 
to  serve  as  the  opening  chapter  of  his  well-known 
volume,  Travels  with  a  Donkey  in  the  Cevennes  ; 
but  the  intention  was  abandoned  in  favour  of  a 
more  abrupt  beginning,  and  the  fragment  is  now 
printed  for  the  first  time. 

It  is  published  in  America  by  arrangement  with 
the  proprietor  of   The  Studio. 


MS02474 


LIST   OF   ILLUSTRATIONS 

I.  Panorama,  from  Morel's  at  Le  Monastier 

Frontispiece 

II.  Lantriac 19 

III.  Chateau  Neuf,  from  the  Gazeille     .         .        .27 

IV.  In  the  Valley  of  the  Laussonne       .         .         .33 
V.  Chateau  Beaufort,  from  Gondet  sur  Loire    .     41 


A  Mountain  Town  in  France 

Le  Monastier  is  the  chief  place  of  a  hilly  can- 
ton in  Haute  Loire,  the  ancient  Velay.  As  the 
name  betokens,  the  town  is  of  monastic  origin  ; 
and  it  still  contains  a  towered  bulk  of  monastery 
and  a  church  of  some  architectural  pretensions, 
the  seat  of  an  arch-priest  and  several  vicars.  It 
stands  on  the  side  of  a  hill  above  the  river  Gazeille, 
about  fifteen  miles  from  Le  Puy,  up  a  steep  road 
where  the  wolves  sometimes  pursue  the  diligence 
in  winter.  The  road,  which  is  bound  for  Vivarais, 
passes  through  the  town  from  end  to  end  in  a  sin- 
gle narrow  street ;  there  you  may  see  the  fountain 
where  women  fill  their  pitchers ;  there  also  some 
old  houses  with  carved  doors  and  pediments  and 
ornamental  work  in  iron.  For  Monastier,  like 
Maybole  in  Ayrshire,  was  a  sort  of  country  capi- 
tal, where  the  local  aristocracy  had  their  town 
mansions  for  the  winter ;  and  there  is  a  certain 
baron  still  alive  and,  I  am  told,  extremely  penitent, 
who  found  means  to  ruin  himself  by  high  living 
in  this  village  on  the  hills.  He  certainly  has 
claims    to     be    considered    the    most    remarkable 


1 6  A  Mountain  Town  in  France 

spendthrift  on  record.  How  he  set  about  it,  in  a 
place  where  there  are  no  luxuries  for  sale,  and 
where  the  board  at  the  best  inn  comes  to  little 
more  than  a  shilling  a  day,  is  a  problem  for  the 
wise.  His  son,  ruined  as  the  family  was,  went  as 
far  as  Paris  to  sow  his  wild  oats  ;  and  so  the  cases 
of  father  and  son  mark  an  epoch  in  the  history  of 
centralization  in  France.  Not  until  the  latter  had 
got  into  the  train  was  the  work  of  Richelieu 
complete. 

It  is  a  people  of  lace-makers.  The  women  sit 
in  the  streets  by  groups  of  five  or  six,  and  the 
noise  of  the  bobbins  is  audible  from  one  group  to 
another.  Now  and  then  you  will  hear  one  woman 
clattering  off  prayers  for  the  edification  of  the 
others  at  their  work.  They  wear  gaudy  shawls, 
white  caps  with  a  gay  ribbon  about  the  head,  and 
sometimes  a  black  felt  brigand  hat  above  the  cap  ; 
and  so  they  give  the  street  colour  and  brightness 
and  a  foreign  air.  A  while  ago,  when  England 
largely  supplied  herself  from  this  district  with  the 
lace  called  torchon,  it  was  not  unusual  to  earn  five 
francs  a  day  ;  and  five  francs  in  Monastier  is  worth 
a  pound  in  London.  Now,  from  a  change  in  the 
market,  it  takes  a  clever  and  industrious  work- 
woman to  earn  from  three  to  four  in  the  week,  or 
less  than  an  eighth  of  what  she  made  easily  a  few 
years  ago.  The  tide  of  prosperity  came  and  went, 
as  with  our  northern  pitmen,  and  left  nobody  the 
richer.       The   women    bravely    squandered    their 


Illustration  II. 
Lantriac. 


:S 


^J 


A  Mountain  Town  in  France  21 

gains,  kept  the  men  in  idleness,  and  gave  them- 
selves up,  as  I  was  told,  to  sweethearting  and  a 
merry  life.  From  week's  end  to  week's  end  it  was 
one  continuous  gala  in  Monastier  ;  people  spent 
the  day  in  the  wine-shops,  and  the  drum  or  the 
bag-pipes  led  on  the  bourrees  up  to  ten  at  night. 
Now  these  dancing  days  are  over.  "  //  riy  a  plus  de 
jeunesse,"  said  Victor  the  gargon.  I  hear  of  no 
great  advance  in  what  are  thought  the  essentials 
of  morality  ;  but  the  botirree,  with  its  rambling, 
sweet,  interminable  music,  and  alert  and  rustic  fig- 
ures, has  fallen  into  disuse,  and  is  mostly  remem- 
bered as  a  custom  of  the  past.  Only  on  the 
occasion  of  the  fair  shall  you  hear  a  drum  dis- 
creetly rattling  in  a  wine-shop,  or  perhaps  one  of 
the  company  singing  the  measure  while  the  others 
dance.  I  am  sorry  at  the  change,  and  marvel 
once  more  at  the  complicated  scheme  of  things 
upon  this  earth,  and  how  a  turn  of  fashion  in  Eng- 
land can  silence  so  much  mountain  merriment  in 
France.  The  lace  -  makers  themselves  have  not 
entirely  forgiven  our  country-women  ;  and  I  think 
they  take  a  special  pleasure  in  the  legend  of  the 
northern  quarter  of  the  town,  called  L'Anglade, 
because  there  the  English  free  lances  were  ar- 
rested and  driven  back  by  the  potency  of  a  little 
Virgin  Mary  on  the  wall. 

From  time  to  time  a  market  is  held,  and  the 
town  has  a  season  of  revival  ;  cattle  and  pigs  are 
stabled  in  the  streets  ;  and  pickpockets  have  been 


22  A  Mountain  Town  in  France 

known  to  come  all  the  way  from  Lyons  for  the 
occasion.  Every  Sunday  the  country  folk  throng 
in  with  daylight  to  buy  apples,  to  attend  mass  and 
to  visit  one  of  the  wine-shops,  of  which  there  are 
no  less  than  fifty  in  this  little  town.  Sunday-wear 
for  the  men  is  a  green  tail  coat  of  some  coarse 
sort  of  drugget,  and  usually  a  complete  suit  to 
match.  I  have  never  set  eyes  on  such  degrading 
raiment.  Here  it  clings,  there  bulges  ;  and  the 
human  body,  with  its  agreeable  and  lively  lines,  is 
turned  into  a  mockery  and  laughing-stock.  An- 
other piece  of  Sunday  business  with  the  peasants 
is  to  take  their  ailments  to  the  chemist  for  advice. 
It  is  as  much  a  matter  for  Sunday  as  church-go- 
ing. I  have  seen  a  woman  who  had  been  unable 
to  speak  since  the  Monday  before,  wheezing, 
catching  her  breath,  endlessly  and  painfully  cough- 
ing ;  and  yet  she  had  waited  upwards  of  a  hundred 
hours  before  coming  to  seek  help,  and  had  the 
week  been  twice  as  long,  she  would  have  waited 
still.  There  was  a  canonical  day  for  consultation  ; 
such  was  the  ancestral  habit,  to  which  a  respect- 
able lady  must  study  to  conform. 

Two  conveyances  go  daily  to  Le  Puy,  but  they 
rival  each  other  in  polite  concessions  rather  than 
in  speed.  Each  will  wait  an  hour  or  two  hours 
cheerfully  while  an  old  lady  does  her  marketing 
or  a  gentleman  finishes  the  papers  in  a  cafe.  The 
Courier  (such  is  the  name  of  one)  should  leave 
Le   Puy  by   two   in  the  afternoon  on   the   return 


A  Mountain  Town  in  France  23 

voyage,  and  arrive  at  Monastier  in  good  time  for 
a  six  o'clock  dinner.  But  the  driver  dares  not 
disoblige  his  customers.  He  will  postpone  his 
departure  again  and  again,  hour  after  hour  ;  and 
I  have  known  the  sun  to  go  down  on  his  delay. 
These  purely  personal  favours,  this  consideration 
of  men's  fancies,  rather  than  the  hands  of  a 
mechanical  clock,  as  marking  the  advance  of  the 
abstraction,  time,  makes  a  more  humorous  busi- 
ness of  stage  coaching  than  we  are  used  to 
see  it. 

As  far  as  the  eye  can  reach,  one  swelling  line 
of  hill-top  rises  and  falls  behind  another ;  and  if 
you  climb  an  eminence,  it  is  only  to  see  new  and 
further  ranges  behind  these.  Many  little  rivers 
run  from  all  sides  in  cliffy  valleys  ;  and  one  of 
them,  a  few  miles  from  Monastier,  bears  the  great 
name  of  Loire.  The  mean  level  of  the  country  is 
a  little  more  than  three  thousand  feet  above  the 
sea,  which  makes  the  atmosphere  proportionably 
brisk  and  wholesome.  There  is  little  timber  ex- 
cept pines,  and  the  greater  part  of  the  country 
lies  in  moorland  pasture.  The  country  is  wild 
and  tumbled  rather  than  commanding ;  an  upland 
rather  than  a  mountain  district ;  and  the  most 
striking  as  well  as  the  most  agreeable  scenery  lies 
low  beside  the  rivers.  There,  indeed,  you  will 
find  many  corners  that  take  the  fancy  ;  such  as 
made  the  English  noble  choose  his  grave  by  a 
Swiss  streamlet,  where  nature  is  at  her  freshest 


24  A  Mountain  Town  in  France 

and  looks  as  young  as  on  the  seventh  morning. 
Such  a  place  is  the  course  of  the  Gazeille,  where 
it  waters  the  common  of  Monastier  and  thence 
downward  till  it  joins  the  Loire — a  place  to  hear 
birds  singing  ;  a  place  for  lovers  to  frequent.  The 
name  of  the  river  was  perhaps  suggested  by  the 
sound  of  its  passage  over  the  stones  ;  for  it  is  a 
great  warbler,  and  at  night,  after  I  was  in  bed  in 
Monastier,  I  could  hear  it  go  singing  down  the 
valley  till  I  fell  asleep. 

On  the  whole,  this  is  a  Scottish  landscape, 
although  not  so  noble  as  the  best  in  Scotland ; 
and  by  an  odd  coincidence,  the  population  is,  in 
its  way,  as  Scottish  as  the  country.  They  have 
abrupt,  uncouth,  Fifeshire  manners,  and  accost 
you,  as  if  you  were  trespassing,  with  an  "  Oust-ce 
que  vous  allez  ?  "  only  translateable  into  the  Low- 
land "  Whau'r  ye  gaun?"  They  keep  the  Scottish 
Sabbath.  There  is  no  labour  done  on  that  day 
but  to  drive  in  and  out  the  various  pigs  and  sheep 
and  cattle  that  make  so  pleasant  a  tinkling  in  the 
meadows.  The  lace -makers  have  disappeared 
from  the  street.  Not  to  attend  mass  would  in- 
volve social  degradation  ;  and  you  may  find  peo- 
ple reading  Sunday  books,  in  particular  a  sort 
of  Catholic  Monthly  Visitor  on  the  doings  of  our 
Lady  of  Lourdes.  I  remember  one  Sunday  when 
I  was  walking  in  the  country  that  I  fell  on  a 
hamlet  and  found  all  the  inhabitants,  from  the 
patriarch  to  the  baby,  gathered  in  the  shadow  of 


Illustration  III. 

Chateau  Neuf,  from  the  Gazeille. 


J*^ 


>.- 


1% 


U^WU^&^H^ 


A  Mountain  Town  in  France  29 

a  gable  at  prayer.  One  strapping  lass  stood  with 
her  back  to  the  wall  and  did  the  solo  part,  the  rest 
chiming  in  devoutly.  Not  far  off  a  lad  lay  flat 
on  his  face  asleep,  among  some  straw,  to  represent 
the  worldly  element. 

Again,  this  people  is  eager  to  proselytise  ;  and 
the  postmaster's  daughter  used  to  argue  with  me 
by  the  half-hour  about  my  heresy,  until  she  grew 
quite  flushed.  I  have  heard  the  reverse  process 
going  on  between  a  Scotswoman  and  a  French 
girl ;  and  the  arguments  in  the  two  cases  were 
identical.  Each  apostle  based  her  claim  on  the 
superior  virtue  and  attainments  of  her  clergy,  and 
clinched  the  business  with  a  threat  of  hell  fire. 
"Pas  bong  pretres  ici"  said  the  Presbyterian, 
"  bong  pretres  en  Beosse."  And  the  postmaster's 
daughter,  taking  up  the  same  weapon,  plied  me, 
so  to  speak,  with  the  butt  of  it  instead  of  the 
bayonet.  We  are  a  hopeful  race,  it  seems,  and 
easily  persuaded  for  our  good.  One  cheerful  cir- 
cumstance I  note  in  these  guerrilla  missions,  that 
each  side  relies  on  hell,  and  Protestant  and 
Catholic  alike  address  themselves  to  a  supposed 
misgiving  in  their  adversary's  heart.  And  I  call 
it  cheerful,  for  faith  is  a  more  supporting  quality 
than  imagination. 

Here,  as  in  Scotland,  many  peasant  families 
boast  a  son  in  holy  orders.  And  here,  also,  the 
young  men  have  a  tendency  to  emigrate.  It  is 
certainly  not  poverty  that  drives  them  to  the  great 


30  A  Mountain  Town  in  France 

cities  or  across  the  seas  ;  for  many  peasant  families, 
I  was  told,  have  a  fortune  of  at  least  40,000  francs. 
The  lads  go  forth  pricked  with  the  spirit  of  ad- 
venture and  the  desire  to  rise  in  life,  and  leave 
their  homespun  elders  grumbling  and  wondering 
over  the  event.  Once,  at  a  village  called  Laus- 
sonne,  I  met  one  of  these  disappointed  parents ; 
a  drake  who  had  fathered  a  wild  swan  and  seen  it 
take  wing  and  disappear.  The  wild  swan  in  ques- 
tion was  now  an  apothecary  in  Brazil.  He  had 
flown  by  way  of  Bordeaux,  and  first  landed  in 
America,  bare-headed  and  bare-foot,  and  with  a 
single  half-penny  in  his  pocket.  And  now  he 
was  an  apothecary !  Such  a  wonderful  thing  is 
an  adventurous  life !  I  thought  he  might  as 
well  have  stayed  at  home  ;  but  you  never  can  tell 
wherein  a  man's  life  consists,  nor  in  what  he  sets 
his  pleasure  :  one  to  drink,  another  to  marry,  a  third 
to  write  scurrillous  articles  and  be  repeatedly  caned 
in  public,  and  now  this  fourth,  perhaps,  to  be  an 
apothecary  in  Brazil.  As  for  his  old  father,  he 
could  conceive  no  reason  for  the  lad's  behaviour. 
"  I  had  always  bread  for  him,"  he  said  ;  "  he  ran 
away  to  annoy  me.  He  loved  to  annoy  me.  He 
had  no  gratitude."  But  at  heart  he  was  swelling 
with  pride  over  his  travelled  offspring,  and  he 
produced  a  letter  out  of  his  pocket  where,  as  he 
said,  it  was  rotting,  a  mere  lump  of  paper  rags, 
and  waved  it  gloriously  in  the  air.  "  This  comes 
from  America,"  he  cried,   "six  thousand   leagues 


Illustration  IV. 

In  the  Valley  of  the  Laussonne. 


A  Mountain  Town  in  France  35 

away ! "      And   the   wine-shop    audience    looked 
upon  it  with  a  certain  thrill. 

I  soon  became  a  popular  figure,  and  was  known 
for  miles  in  the  country.  Oust-ce  que  vous  allez  ? 
was  changed  for  me  into  Quoi,  vous  rentrez  au 
Monastier  ce  soir  f  and  in  the  town  itself  every 
urchin  seemed  to  know  my  name,  although  no 
living  creature  could  pronounce  it.  There  was  one 
particular  group  of  lace-makers  who  brought  out  a 
chair  for  me  whenever  I  went  by,  and  detained  me 
from  my  walk  to  gossip.  They  were  filled  with 
curiosity  about  England,  its  language,  its  religion, 
the  dress  of  the  women,  and  were  never  weary  of 
seeing  the  queen's  head  on  English  postage  stamps 
or  seeking  for  French  words  in  English  journals. 
The  language,  in  particular,  filled  them  with 
surprise. 

"Do  they  speak  patois  in  England?"  I  was 
once  asked  ;  and  when  I  told  them  not,  "  Ah,  then, 
French  ? "  said  they. 

"  No,  no,"  I  said,   "not  French." 

"  Then,"   they  concluded,   "  they  speak  patois." 

You  must  obviously  either  speak  French  or 
patois.  Talk  of  the  force  of  logic — here  it  was  in 
all  its  weakness.  I  gave  up  the  point,  but  pro- 
ceeding to  give  illustrations  of  my  native  jargon, 
I  was  met  with  a  new  mortification.  Of  2W  patois 
they  declared  that  mine  was  the  most  preposter- 
ous and  the  most  jocose  in  sound.  At  each  new 
word  there  was  a  new  explosion  of  laughter,  and 


36  A  Mountain  Town  in  France 

some  of  the  younger  ones  were  glad  to  rise  from 
their  chairs  and  stamp  about  the  street  in  ecstasy ; 
and  I  looked  on  upon  their  mirth  in  a  faint  and 
slightly  disagreeable  bewilderment.  "  Bread," 
which  sounds  a  commonplace,  plain-sailing  mono- 
syllable in  England,  was  the  word  that  most 
delighted  these  good  ladies  of  Monastier ;  it 
seemed  to  them  frolicsome  and  racy,  like  a  page 
of  Pickwick ;  and  they  all  got  it  carefully  by 
heart,  as  a  stand-by,  I  presume,  for  winter  even- 
ings. I  have  tried  it  since  then  with  every  sort 
of  accent  and  inflection,  but  I  seem  to  lack  the 
sense  of  humour. 

They  were  of  all  ages :  children  at  their  first 
web  of  lace,  a  stripling  girl  with  a  bashful  but 
encouraging  play  of  eyes,  solid  married  women, 
and  grandmothers,  some  on  the  top  of  their  age 
and  some  failing  towards  decrepitude.  One  and 
all  were  pleasant  and  natural,  ready  to  laugh 
and  ready  with  a  certain  quiet  solemnity  when 
that  was  called  for  by  the  subject  of  our  talk. 
Life,  since  the  fall  in  wages,  had  begun  to  appear 
to  them  with  a  more  serious  air.  The  stripling 
girl  would  sometimes  laugh  at  me  in  a  provoca- 
tive and  not  unadmiring  manner,  if  I  judge 
aright ;  and  one  of  the  grandmothers,  who  was  my 
great  friend  of  the  party,  gave  me  many  a  sharp 
word  of  judgment  on  my  sketches,  my  heresy,  or 
even  my  arguments,  and  gave  them  with  a  wry 
mouth    and  a  humorous  twinkle  in  her  eye  that 


A  Mountain  Town  in  France  37 

were  eminently  Scottish.  But  the  rest  used  me 
with  a  certain  reverence,  as  something  come  from 
afar  and  not  entirely  human.  Nothing  would  put 
them  at  their  ease  but  the  irresistible  gaiety  of 
my  native  tongue.  Between  the  old  lady  and 
myself  I  think  there  was  a  real  attachment.  She 
was  never  weary  of  sitting  to  me  for  her  portrait, 
in  her  best  cap  and  brigand  hat,  and  with  all  her 
wrinkles  tidily  composed ;  and  though  she  never 
failed  to  repudiate  the  result,  she  would  always 
insist  upon  another  trial.  It  was  as  good  as  a 
play  to  see  her  sitting  in  judgment  over  the  last. 
"  No,  no,"  she  would  say,  "  that  is  not  it.  I  am 
old,  to  be  sure,  but  I  am  better  looking  than  that. 
We  must  try  again."  When  I  was  about  to  leave 
she  bade  me  good-bye  for  this  life  in  a  somewhat 
touching  manner.  We  should  not  meet  again, 
she  said  ;  it  was  a  long  farewell,  and  she  was 
sorry.  But  life  is  so  full  of  crooks,  old  lady,  that 
who  knows  ?  I  have  said  good-bye  to  people  for 
greater  distances  and  times,  and,  please  God,  I 
mean  to  see  them  yet  again. 

One  thing  was  notable  about  these  women  from 
the  youngest  to  the  oldest,  and  with  hardly  an  ex- 
ception. In  spite  of  their  piety,  they  could  twang 
off  an  oath  with  Sir  Toby  Belch  in  person.  There 
was  nothing  so  high  or  so  low,  in  heaven  or  earth 
or  in  the  human  body,  but  a  woman  of  this  neigh- 
borhood would  whip  out  the  name  of  it,  fair  and 
square,  by  way  of  conversational  adornment.     My 


38  A  Mountain  Town  in  France 

landlady,  who  was  pretty  and  young,  dressed  like 
a  lady  and  avoided  patois  like  a  weakness,  com- 
monly addressed  her  child  in  the  language  of  a 
drunken  bully.  And  of  all  the  swearers  that  I 
ever  heard,  commend  me  to  an  old  lady  in  Gondet, 
a  village  of  the  Loire.  I  was  making  a  sketch, 
and  her  curse  was  not  yet  ended  when  I  had 
finished  it  and  took  my  departure.  It  is  true  she 
had  a  right  to  be  angry ;  for  here  was  her  son,  a 
hulking  fellow,  visibly  the  worse  for  drink  before 
the  day  was  well  begun.  But  it  was  strange  to 
hear  her  unwearying  flow  of  oaths  and  obscenities, 
endless  like  a  river,  and  now  and  then  rising  to  a 
passionate  shrillness  in  the  clear  and  silent  air  of 
the  morning.  In  city  slums,  the  thing  might  have 
passed  unnoticed ;  but  in  a  country  valley,  and 
from  a  plain  and  honest  countrywoman,  this  beast- 
liness of  speech  surprised  the  ear. 

The  Conductor,  as  he  is  called,  of  Roads  and 
Bridges,  was  my  principal  companion.  He  was 
generally  intelligent,  and  could  have  spoken  more 
or  less  falsetto  on  any  of  the  trite  topics  ;  but  it 
was  his  specialty  to  have  a  generous  taste  in  eating. 
This  was  what  was  most  indigenous  in  the  man  ; 
it  was  here  he  was  an  artist ;  and  I  found  in  his 
company  what  I  had  long  suspected,  that  enthu- 
siasm and  special  knowledge  are  the  great  social 
qualities,  and  what  they  are  about,  whether  white 
sauce  or  Shakespeare's  plays,  an  altogether  sec- 
ondary question. 


Illustration  V. 

Chateau  Beaufort,  from  Gondet  sur  Loire. 


' :     :. 


A  Mountain  Town  in  France  43 

I  used  to  accompany  the  Conductor  on  his  pro- 
fessional rounds,  and  grew  to  believe  myself  an 
expert  in  the  business.  1  thought  I  could  make 
an  entry  in  a  stonebreakers'  time-book,  or  order 
manure  off  the  wayside  with  any  living  engineer  in 
France.  Gondet  was  one  of  the  places  we  visited 
together ;  and  Laussonne,  where  I  met  the  apothe- 
cary's father,  was  another.  There,  at  Laussonne, 
George  Sand  spent  a  day  while  she  was  gathering 
materials  for  the  "  Marquis  de  Villemer ;  "  and  I 
have  spoken  with  an  old  man,  who  was  then  a  child 
running  about  the  inn  kitchen,  and  who  still  re- 
members her  with  a  sort  of  reverence.  It  appears 
that  he  spoke  French  imperfectly  ;  for  this  reason 
George  Sand  chose  him  for  companion,  and  when- 
ever he  let  slip  a  broad  and  picturesque  phrase  in 
patois,  she  would  make  him  repeat  it  again  and 
again  till  it  was  graven  in  her  memory.  The  word 
for  a  frog  particularly  pleased  her  fancy  ;  and  it 
would  be  curious  to  know  if  she  afterwards  em- 
ployed it  in  her  works.  The  peasants,  who  knew 
nothing  of  letters  and  had  never  so  much  as  heard 
of  local  colour,  could  not  explain  her  chattering 
with  this  backward  child  ;  and  to  them  she  seemed 
a  very  homely  lady  and  far  from  beautiful  :  the 
most  famous  man-killer  of  the  age  appealed  so 
little  to  Velaisian  swine-herds  ! 

On  my  first  engineering  excursion,  which  lay 
up  by  Crouzials  toward  Mount  Mezenc  and  the 
borders    of    Ardeche,  I    began    an   improving   ac- 


44  A  Mountain  Town  in  France 

quaintance  with  the  foreman  road-mender.  He 
was  in  great  glee  at  having  me  with  him,  passed 
me  off  among  his  subalterns  as  the  supervising 
engineer,  and  insisted  on  what  he  called  "the 
gallantry  "  of  paying  for  my  breakfast  in  a  road- 
side wine-shop.  On  the  whole,  he  was  a  man  of 
great  weather-wisdom,  some  spirits  and  a  social 
temper.  But  I  am  afraid  he  was  superstitious. 
When  he  was  nine  years  old,  he  had  seen  one 
night  a  company  of  bourgeois  et  dames  qui  fai- 
saient  le  manege  avec  des  chaises,  and  concluded 
that  he  was  in  the  presence  of  a  witches'  Sabbath. 
I  suppose,  but  venture  with  timidity  on  the  sug- 
gestion, that  this  may  have  been  a  romantic  and 
nocturnal  picnic  party.  Again,  coming  from  Pra- 
delles  with  his  brother,  they  saw  a  great,  empty 
cart,  drawn  by  six  enormous  horses  before  them 
on  the  road.  The  driver  cried  aloud  and  filled 
the  mountains  with  the  cracking  of  his  whip.  He 
never  seemed  to  go  faster  than  a  walk,  yet  it  was 
impossible  to  overtake  him  ;  and  at  length,  at  the 
corner  of  a  hill,  the  whole  equipage  disappeared 
bodily  into  the  night.  At  the  time  people  said  it 
was  the  devil  qui  samusait  a  fair e  ca. 

I  suggested  there  was  nothing  more  likely,  as 
he  must  have  some  amusement. 

The  foreman  said  it  was  odd,  but  there  was  less 
of  that  sort  of  thing  than  formerly.  "  Cest  diffi- 
cile" he  added,  "  a  expliquer" 

When  we  were  well  up  on  the  moors  and  the 


A  Mountain  Town  in  France  45 

Condicctor  was  trying  some  road  metal  with  the 
gauge— 

"  Hark  !  "  said  the  foreman,  "do  you  hear  noth- 
ing? 

We  listened,  and  the  wind,  which  was  blowing 
chilly  out  of  the  east,  brought  a  faint,  tangled 
jangling  to  our  ears. 

"  It  is  the  flocks  of  Vivarais,"  said  he. 

For  every  summer,  the  flocks  out  of  all  Ardeche 
are  brought  up  to  pasture  on  these  grassy  pla- 
teaux. 

Here  and  there  a  little  private  flock  was  being 
tended  by  a  girl,  one  spinning  with  a  distaff, 
another  seated  on  a  wall  and  intently  making  lace. 
This  last,  when  we  addressed  her,  leaped  up  in  a 
panic  and  put  out  her  arms,  like  a  person  swim- 
ming, to  keep  us  at  a  distance,  and  it  was  some 
seconds  before  we  could  persuade  her  of  the  hon- 
esty of  our  intentions. 

The  Conductor  told  me  of  another  herdswoman 
from  whom  he  had  once  asked  his  road  while 
he  was  yet  new  to  the  country,  and  who  fled  from 
him,  driving  her  beasts  before  her,  until  he  had 
given  up  the  information  in  despair.  A  tale  of 
old  lawlessness  may  yet  be  read  in  these  uncouth 
timidities. 

The  winter  in  these  uplands  is  a  dangerous  and 
melancholy  time.  Houses  are  snowed  up,  and 
wayfarers  lost  in  a  flurry  within  hail  of  their  own 
fireside.     No  man  ventures  abroad  without   meat 


46  A  Mountain  Town  in  France 

and  a  bottle  of  wine,  which  he  replenishes  at  every 
wine-shop  ;  and  even  thus  equipped  he  takes  the 
road  with  terror.  All  day  the  family  sits  about 
the  fire  in  a  foul  and  airless  hovel,  and  equally 
without  work  or  diversion.  The  father  may  carve 
a  rude  piece  of  furniture,  but  that  is  all  that  will 
be  done  until  the  spring  sets  in  again,  and  along 
with  it  the  labours  of  the  field.  It  is  not  for 
nothing  that  you  find  a  clock  in  the  meanest  of 
these  mountain  habitations.  A  clock  and  an 
almanac,  you  would  fancy,  were  indispensable 
in  such  a  life 


14  DAY  USE 

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